What Rilla’s saying at the end there is “With Alex, Leah, and Hopkins.” Totally unprompted, I swear.
When I watched our Christmas 2005 video the other day, the bit that gave me the biggest pang of nostalgia was watching Wonderboy signing away. He hardly signs at all anymore, now that he talks so much. I’m thrilled with his verbal speech, but I really miss the signing. It’s funny to think back on how much ASL dominated our lives (in a rich and satisfying way) for a couple of years there, and now our use and pursuit of sign language has slipped ...
Every Christmas (birthdays, too) Scott gives each child one special picture book. Yes, our older girls are well past picture-book age by now—except that you’re never past picture-book age, not really. I’m certainly not. And this is a treasured family tradition; it’s always great fun to see what gems he comes up with.
His picks for Christmas, 2008:
Rilla: an oldie but one of the best. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina. Our dog-eared paperback copy was recently destroyed in that little bit of flooding we had on my birthday. Scott replaced it ...
Just please, please don’t look too closely. My stitching is deplorable. I really cannot manage to sew a straight seam to save my life. Scott says he likes to listen to me sew because of the inanities that come out of my mouth while I bungle the job… “Son of a b…utternut squash!”
Anyway, here’s my little diaper case, and yes, I am inordinately proud. It holds a couple of diapers and a travel wipes container.
Here’s my boy, hanging out having a snack with his good buddy, Mr. Potato Head.
I wondered why one of Potato Head’s ears was lying on the couch with a spare screw-cover (left over from the construction of a toy shopping cart) stuck on the end. Wonderboy informed me that it isn’t an ear—it’s a hearing aid. And it needed a new battery, of course. Evidently he went rummaging around in the drawer where we keep his own hearing aid batteries and found the little orange screw-cover.
I couldn’t help but grin today at the contrast between the cozy Advent post I wrote before the children awoke, the one celebrating the best moments of the past week, and the complicated, messy, full-of-friction day that commenced as soon as the first child staggered out of bed. The thing is, every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might ...
Last week was the crazy-busy week. Piano recital, Nativity play at nursing home (those two on the same day), speech, OB appointment, post-office trip, extra ballet practice, ballet recital, choir rehearsal, Christmas shopping. Throw in a couple of days of torrential rains and a minor flood in our patio room, just for fun. (Minimal damage, easily dealt with. Turned out to be not a big deal at all. Discovering a computer power strip sitting in half an inch of water—during the brief span of time between the piano recital and the Nativity play—it sure felt like it was going to ...
These have been in my sidebar widget for a while, but I forgot to roll them into a post for the benefit of my feed-reading readers until I referred to the Amazon.uk thing last night and Scott didn’t know what I meant. Here you go, babe!
Leaving Literature Behind - ChronicleReview.com - “Nowadays we teach literature as if we were giving a tour of a grocery store to Martians who’ve just touched down on Earth. We professional storekeepers explain the vegetable section, the dairy section, the meat section, note ...
It is astonishing how much attention my hubby pays to my enthusiastic chatterings. Especially when the topic is something he has absolutely no interest in personally, like, say, quilting.
…Anyway, all this Dickens talk brought to mind something I read long ago in the introduction to Kate Douglas Wiggins’s Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. It was an unforgettable account of young (very young) Kate’s encounter with Charles Dickens himself on a train during one of his reading tours of the United States. I no longer have the edition of Rebecca which contains the article (Alice, I think it was your copy?), but I Googled this morning with hope in my heart and aha! There it was, in full, at a delightful site called OldMagazineArticles.com.
Scott and I (especially Scott) have a great fondness for Huckleberry Finn—the character and the book. Fondness, respect, admiration. It’s funny that whenever I’m asked to name my favorite authors, I never think to include Mark Twain among their number. Yet I have only to read a paragraph, a sentence even, of his work, and I’m reminded what a prominent position he actually holds on the list.
I’m not alone. Roger Ebert, in a lyrical, hilarious, and touching piece about his longtime friend Bill Nack (”Perform a Concert in Words“), speaks with great enthusiasm of Twain’s singular gifts:
Margot Davidson of Hillside Education has organized a marvelous way to help a family in a tight spot. Her “Helping Those in Need” page contains a list of books and other materials donated by folks around the ‘net. All proceeds from the sale of these items will be given to a particular family in need.
I’ve donated a couple of hard-to-find Martha and Charlotte books. These are hardcovers, and are, of course, the original, unabridged editions. If buyers include inscription information with their orders (or just drop me a note after you’ve made your purchase at Margot’s site), I’ll be happy ...
I’m reaching the point in the pregnancy where if I’m quiet for a day or two people start to wonder if they’ve missed some big news. But no, I’m just sparing you the incoherent ramblings of a scattered mind. Except right now I’m not sparing you. Blame it on the sweet people who’ve written to ask if all’s well.
All is well. Baby’s still very happy in there, doing a lot of enthusiastic rib-pummeling. Matter of fact, Beanie thinks “Pummel” would be a good name. (I guess it’s a step up from Peccatoribus.) Rose and Bean have already given ...
UPDATE: Well, I guess it isn’t all the way broken. I went back and messed with it some more, and broke the needle, and after I replaced it I changed back to the regular foot, and now it’s working again. Maybe Karen (who commented below) had the right idea—the needle was bent or something? I’ll try again with the walking foot another day. This was enough excitement for one afternoon.
All right, you sewing types. I’ve just messed up my machine somehow. It’s a 12-year-old Brother XR-29, decidedly non-fancy. I just put on a walking foot—first time I’ve ever ...
I have over 200 incomplete posts in my drafts folder. Yikes. And that’s just here, at the Wordpress site, where I’ve been for less than a year. Lord knows how many drafts are sitting over at Typepad. I dare not look.
In an effort to clear this cache out a bit, here’s a look at some things I was going to write about but didn’t get around to finishing.
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Swell Stocking-Stuffer for Your Music-Loving Hubby
Or for any lover of contemporary music, really. Doesn’t have to be your husband. Your sister, your teenager. It’s just that Scott’s the music buff in my life, ...
I’ve mentioned before that what I love most about Twitter is how well it lends itself to quickly chronicling tiny moments of our day: the funny quote, the one-sentence sketch of a moment in time. Days will pass where I have no time to write a proper post, but I can manage a quick tweet about something I don’t want to forget. And I would forget, if I weren’t writing them down. My friends Dave and Julianna used to (maybe still do) keep a piece of paper stuck to their fridge as a place to hastily jot down the hilarious ...
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by Esphyr Slobodkina. Our dog-eared paperback copy was recently destroyed in that little bit of flooding we had on my birthday. Scott replaced it ...
. It was an unforgettable account of young (very young) Kate’s encounter with Charles Dickens himself on a train during one of his reading tours of the United States. I no longer have the edition of Rebecca which contains the article (
